I’ve had better reading years. I’m not exactly sure why I had difficulty carving out time to read. A kind of malaise, I guess. When I picked up my iPad, I found myself playing stupid games instead of reading. I’m not a resolution-maker, but if I were, my resolution for 2023 would be to read more and play fewer games. After a number of years of reading almost exclusively on my iPad, I discovered I made better progress with physical books. A lot of what I get are eGalleys, so I can’t always go back to paper, but I will when I can.
I finished something like 37 “books,” although a couple of them on my list (see the complete list here) are more in the novella category. I will probably finish the book I’m currently reading (Swamp Story by Dave Barry) before the end of the year and maybe even get in another book or two during the long weekends ahead. Some of the books I read this year aren’t new, including four by Martha Grimes, one by Haruki Murakami and a couple of Keigo Higashino mysteries.
As I’ve said on any number of occasions, especially during interviews this past year, I’m not much of a list-maker—especially ordered lists of favorites. So, I’m going to trim my list of books finished in 2022 down to my top 12, but they will be in chronological order rather than ranked order. The titles with hyperlinks are ones I reviewed, either at my review site, Onyx Reviews or somewhere else.
Without any further ado:
- Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
- Corrections in Ink: A Memoir by Keri Blakinger
- Gwendy’s Final Task by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar
- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Fairy Tale by Stephen King
- Mr. Breakfast by Jonathan Carroll
- Call Me a Cab by Donald E. Westlake
- The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
- This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
- Hell and Back by Craig Johnson
- The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown by Lawrence Block
- A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
